The University of Ottawa and its Senate, from the eyes of students

Current student representatives are effectively excluded from the process.

At the January 10, 2011 meeting of the University of Ottawa Senate, Senators voted down the administration’s proposal to have the Executive Committee strike a subcommittee to make a recommendation on the Senate’s historic adoption of its first-ever set of procedural rules governing its meetings (see posts below).

Instead, the Senate adopted the motion that I proposed to have the Senate itself create the subcommittee.

Senators agreed, however, to wait six months before the procedural rules subcommittee would be formed. The vote to delay the creation of the subcommittee was successful despite requests of student representatives that the subcommittee be formed immediately to allow their participation before their mandates end in three months.

As I spearheaded the procedural rules campaign and contributed significantly to the work done to establish the subcommittee, I am disappointed that the Senate has chosen to wait until my mandate is over to allow the subcommittee to begin its work.

An independent critical analysis of this latest development at the University of Ottawa Senate entitled U of O’s crisis of democracy has been solved is available here.